It was a day to raise awareness of human trafficking and to promote unity and integration of foreigners through door-to-door contact, a music and dance competition and a discussion with community members and leaders in Alexandra township, a poor informal settlement in Gauteng province, South Africa.

Poverty and lack of basic services among communities are linked to vulnerability to human trafficking. A report released by IOM and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in October 2008 highlighted that internal trafficking is a big problem in South Africa, with victims most often recruited from rural areas where poverty and unemployment increase their vulnerability. This is compounded by public misperceptions that human trafficking is only a cross-border issue. 

Activities such as this one in Alexandra, located on the northern outskirts of Johannesburg close to the wealthy suburb of Sandton and with a population of about 470,000, are crucial to raise community awareness on such issues and to help promote the creation of community protection structures.

But the event, held jointly by IOM, the city of Johannesburg's Migrant Helpdesk and its Youth Development Forum (CJYDF), also became an opportunity to raise some other concerns.

It's not much more than a year since xenophobic violence hit communities in South Africa, leaving more than 60 dead and over 100,000 displaced.  Now, some community members in Alexandra, where it is widely believed the violence first began in May 2008,  have warned that the attacks may reoccur.

Speaking to CJYDF youth peer educators, community members voiced concerns about the lack of housing and basic services, and blamed some of these challenges on the presence of non-nationals, whom they often referred to as "illegal immigrants".  But residents also acknowledged that human trafficking was becoming a concern, and welcomed awareness activities to help prevent it from escalating. 

The day's activities in Alexandra followed recent similar events in the informal settlement of Zanspruit in the northern side of Johannesburg, an area badly affected by xenophobic violence, and in Randburg.  By using local youths from the CJYDF as peer educators, the activities are designed to promote change from within these communities so that such incidents don't reoccur.

"The activities target townships that were most affected by xenophobic violence in May 2008, and are run with the secondary aim of promoting informal discussions about common challenges that face these communities, and means of addressing these challenges without resorting to violence," says Itumeleng Magongoa, CJYDF project coordinator.

Despite concerns over migrants, what really mattered for residents was an end to corruption in the housing sector. They also felt that more should be done to create fora for regular dialogue so that issues of human trafficking and xenophobia can be frankly addressed. This, they thought, could help enhance the community's understanding of migrants' rights, and help protect women and children, who are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking.

The awareness activities, supported by the US State Department's Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry,  form part of IOM's Southern African Counter-Trafficking Assistance Programme (SACTAP) and the ONE Movement campaign (http://www.1movement.co.za/). The ONE Movement is a social change campaign under the patronage of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, which engages the public, government, international and civil society organizations in a joint effort to promote a culture of tolerance, respect, human dignity, and unity in diversity across South Africa and Africa.

For more information, please contact:

Nde Ndifonka
IOM Pretoria 
Tel: +27 12 342 2789
E-mail: nndifonka@iom.int